Whilst the judicary does not set policy politically, it can certainly make laws in its rulings that affect both the interpretation of th constitution, and also in the way the rulings operate, such rulings can effectively beome national policy.
In this case, the rulings of the judiciary effectively blocked extradition in such a way that the UK and other international observers decided future attempts were not realistically going to be worthwhile, and in this manner it became US policy as observed by other nations.
Its especially galling because of the issue that these extraditions turend on were not substantive, revolving around something such as a date or day, when there was actually no question whatsoever about the correct identity of the subject.
It was the responsbility of the executive to oversee this process, and enact such changes to the law as required for a fair extradition process, clearly the prospect of this happening was remote, to say the least.
So yes, directly and indirectly, both through the judiciary and the executive, the US became a safe haven for Irish terrorists, and the inaction to deal with their fundraising for a violent terroristic function is certainly something that should have been dealt with on a federal level, and indeed this happened, but only well after terrorism came home to the US in the form of the Oklahoma boming and the disgraceful Omagh bombing of WW2 veterans, all of a sudden, after 20 years of tacit support through inaction the US started to wake up to the reality of what terrorism means.
Its something we’ve come to expect in Europe, the US arrives late on the scene in major conflicts, and its worked too, leaving the US as the worlds only superpower.
I had assumed it was common knowledge everywhere that a large group of US citizens assisted in funding the IRA.
Hardly documentary evidence but I recall a joke in National Lampoon in the 70s about contributing to “the Irish charity for widows and orphans. The more we give the more widows and orphans they can make.” The last episode of the original series of Columbo, about the same time, featured an organisation “American Friends for Northen Ireland” that was a front for IRA fund raising. I’m sure there were other references that led me to believe what I did.
Actually, this is not quite true. An appeals court can rule on a motion made by one party to interpret existing law in a particular way. Eventually, if it gets to SCOTUS, the Supremes can issue a ruling that interprets existing law in a way to have the effect of creating new law. (This, of course, is one of the fierce debating points regarding all judicial rulings, (“activist judges,” “living document,” “originalists,” “textualists,” and all those buzz words one sees a lot in GD and the Pit), that is actually hotly debated in the U.S.) It still requires a specific motion in regards to an existing law–particularly at the trial court or appellate court level.
So a single opinion by a minority of justices in a single appellate district was enough to persuade the British government that they had no hope of winning their case? To me, that strongly suggests that either the Brit government did not understand the U.S. judicial system or that the case was decided on much stronger evidence than you have provided, here.
No. Not in the U.S. It may work that way in Britain, but that is not how the government or courts are organized in the U.S.
We have addressed the judiciary (although probably not to your satisfaction, I’m sure). The executive has no such powers as you seem to believe are available. The limited steps taken after the WTC/Pentagon attacks in the form of executive orders were mostly issued in the context of implementing existing U.S. legislation regarding attacks on the U.S. The few that did not rely on actual legislation were also done as direct responses to attacks on the U.S. The various Irish groups were always canny enough to refrain from picking any U.S. targets.
I will grant that U.S. society was too tolerant of supporting terror in Ireland, as long as you recognize that it was a matter of political will by the Congress, (as influenced by political lobbying organizations), not simply individual actions by various presidents.
As noted, there is a strong sentiment among U.S. citizens of Irish descent that the “resistance” was a legitimate process. I would guess that bombings in Britain, (whch, while horrible, were still fairly rare), were simply not noticed as often as killings in Ireland. With what (from the left side of the Atlantic) appeared to be government collusion with one side against the other, any effort to crack down on the support for the IRA would have evoked a rather nasty response for any number of legislators at election time.
Note, that while the questions raised in this thread have been “Why did the U.S. government permit the funding of terrorists?” the question asked in the U.S. for 30+ years was “Why does the British government fail to clean out the terrorists from the RUC, UDR, UDA, UVF, etc.?”
I can see where someone living on the island of Great Britain would be upset that funds from the west of the Atlantic were used to kill people in pubs in Brighton and elsewhere, but the people sending that money kept reading the reports about British government sponsored terrorism in Ulster and they would have been really upset if the U.S. government had “taken sides.”
As to the situation following 11 September, 2001, note that by that time the Belfast Accords had been signed (if not actually adopted) three years previously and it was easier to portray anyone still pushing terrorism as part of a world-wide problem that already had a (paper) solution in Ireland.
Regarding sanctions against particular groups, I would guess that it would be a matter of which groups were able to get the best lobbyists to keep them off any list of terrorists.
Note that my specific phrases were “With what (from the left side of the Atlantic) appeared to be government collusion” and “the people sending that money kept reading the reports about British government sponsored terrorism in Ulster.”
I am not taking a position on the issue in the hopes that this thread can be kept in General Questions. The progress of my answer to the OP is that [ul][li]the U.S. Judiciary is not an executive arm of the U.S. government;[/li][li]the U.S. Executive is only permitted to execute orders passed by Congress*[/li][li] Congress was reluctant to make an issue of IRA activities, because[/li][li] a significant portion of the electorate sympathized with the IRA, based partly on cultural identity and partly on reports about Brirish actions or lack of actions regarding the various paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.[/ul][/li]The pro-Republican Yanks may have gotten all their information wrong, but that was the basis for the action or lack on the part of the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government.
The U.S. never actively supported the IRA, but their was no political will to sanction the IRA or to sanction U.S. citizens who were supporting the IRA. From one perspective, you could categorize that (lack of) action as “turning a blind eye.” On the other hand, it was never a formal policy of the U.S. in the way that the U.S. “turned a blind eye” to the depredations of the Greek or Argentinian military or Fernando Marcos or the Somozas, father and sons.
(Yeah, I know that presidents have been issuing Executive Orders for a long time. It is still pretty rare for the president to issue an EO that actually defines new laws, and Congress is perfectly capable of overturning EOs of which they disapprove–complaints against the current administration, notwithstanding.)
One thing that always got in the way of extradition was that the IRA claimed theirs were political acts.
The exectutive could certainly have put the IRA on the list of terrorist organisations which would have removed this excuse at a stroke.
The splinter group, the Real IRA was declared a terrorist organisation, there are many other armed groups that have been declared as such, but the Provos never were.
The lack of political will in the US to do something about Irish terrorist fundraising because of electoral concerns is also a form of tacit support, its the old argument, if you are not for us, you are against us, Irish annd Englshi people were being murdered daily, but killers on boths sides, but the US decided not to take some very simple steps because their politicians were worried about their positions.
This shows that support for the IRA was so strong, it reached a popular level in the US that the politicians did not want to alienate.
So what we have here is a significant enough number of US citizens having sympathy with the IRA, and US administrators being held to their account.
Thats how democracy works, but it still amounts to US support for the IRA at all levels in the US, even if this is just on certain parts of the East Coast.
We see that single issue politics works the world over, we see US polticians held to ransom over right wing religious issues which seek to sink Darwinism.
We see Bush get reelected having started an unjustified war, and we see the US supporting the terrorist enemies of its closest allies.
Right, so doesn’t this equate to the Government turning a blind eye to financial support for the IRA? For whatever reason they didn’t see fit to take action?
But it is simply not true that the “U.S. Government” didn’t take any action. Among other things: they banned British MP Gerry Adams from travel to the U.S. for a decade, they prosecuted NORAID to the furthest extent of the U.S. law and the FBI (and Customs) ran near continuous undercover operations against the IRA - sometimes even successfully especially in the area of weapons procurement. If you are saying the U.S. government didn’t do anything then I think we are seriously off track - and with all due respect I think the facts don’t bear that out to any fair minded person.
Really where it gets tricky and I am not sure is if the U.S. knew and could/should have taken a shot to prove in court that there was fund raising going on in the U.S. that went to Terrorists ( a person who uses Terrorism, ter·ror·ism :the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes) beyond NORAID …… And I am guessing that based on the answers here there isn’t a clear case for that – right?
Not to say if me or mine had lived in terror in London based on what has been listed here I wouldn’t throw the stink-eye nor I would be comfortable and satisfied with the general tenor of what happened in the U.S.
Thanks to everyone who struggled to answer on this difficult and controversial topic.
How long did it take for the US to actually start taking action - well over 20 years, and even following this period, it was only a fig leaf, because fund raising continued.
It was only after the Omagh bomb that the US made anything like a real attempt to curb IRA activity.
You’ll not that the article in the first of your links was written in 1994, but the violence was already receding by this time, but back in 1974 it was quite a differant matter.
Minor nitpick, I believe you are conflating two incidents in the part I have bolded, the 1998 Real IRA bombing of Omagh, Co. Tyrone and the 1988 Provisional IRA bombing in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh on Remembrance Sunday.
I can only speak to the OP from personal experience. My father was an Irish immigrant and very active in Chicago’s Irish community. We attended events that were informally called “IRA picnics”. These were huge – thousands or even tens of thousands attending. It was no secret at all they were fundraising for “The Cause”, freedom from “English tyrrany”. There were lots of city and and county officials attending – I remember Mayor Daley (the old one) was there at least once.
I’m quite sure no one had any fear of being scooped up as a terrorist threat.
Personally, I think that the British government certainly did things in Northern Ireland which it has very little to be proud about.
The partition was not a great idea, but that is in retrospect, and trying to force a million or more of your citizens into become part of another country, against their will is only going to cause an insurgency.
In Norhtern Ireland at partition, the Protestants were in a clear majority, whats more, due to the way the police and army were set up, they also had the vast majority of access to weapons.
Had the British tried to force the Protestants to become part of a united Ireland back in the days of partition there would have been a civil war, no question about it, and since there are so many Irish immigrants living in the rest of the UK, there are real fears that this could have spread to the mainland.
The biggest error of judgement by the British was to allow the Protestants to pretty much run Northern Ireland as their fiefdom, it was an abrogation of responsibility.
You also have to recall the attitude of the Protestant living in Northern Ireland during partition, they saw the Catholic population and Eire as being in thrall to the Pope, and when you look at how recently Eire has actually moved from being a very religioulsy run country, to a more modern liberal democracy, you can see they were so concerned.
I think that the U.S. did several things before the 90’s.
Beginning in 1979 under Carter, and intensifying under Reagan in 1981 The U.S. Justice department pursued a court case against NORAID. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/aia/wilson95.htm
—QUOTE-------------- Federal attorneys worked relentlessly to force the group to acknowledge the Provisional IRA as its foreign principal. This legal action also had the objective of making NORAID provide greater details about its fund-raising activities. The Justice Department hoped that victory in the case would bolster its contention that NORAID was bankrolling IRA violence in Northern Ireland.
NORAID always contended under oath that it was a Charity and did not fund terror and indeed the U.S. prosecution exceeded the ban by almost 10 years any action taken against NORAID by the UK.
The Gun Running successes, prosecutions and disruptions, and US Custom Agents lying under Oath on the government’s behalf to “frame guilty” IRA members are pretty well laid out in that cite as well and all take place 78-84ish.
This Cite also shows that the tension in Anglo-American relations were the slow progress the Thatcher Government was making in coming to political reality in Northern Ireland, as Blair eventually did, and not any “US support” for the IRA
Further, from 1983 when he was elected to parliament until 1993 when he got a 45 day pass, the U.S. Banned M.P. Gerry Adams from this country. With political leaders that isn’t unheard of – but it usually is someone like Castro or Arafat… The beginning of this and the end incidentally exceeds at both ends the voice ban in the UK.
-------QUOTE------------------- It is true that a small portion of Irish-Americans have always supported the Irish Republican Army, but the importance of the money they raised and the weapons they procurred for the republican movement tended to be exaggerated - mostly by the British, Irish and American governments in an attempt to persuade Americans not to contribute to IRA support groups.
<snip>
Contrary to popular belief, the IRA didn’t rely on American money or weapons. And they couldn’t rely on American political support, which was limited at the beginning of the Troubles and continued to shrink as the IRA campaign dragged on and most influential Irish-Americans, especially politicians, distanced themselves from the IRA.
I think that this is indeed the case – as we have seen our British Dopers, who have always been the most sensible and voice of reason in many our political and historical discussions, fall back on “everybody knows this to be true-isms” and yet can’t quite produce cites as to the involvement or of the U.S. government in IRA fundraising.
It seems likely that the IRA has funded itself as it does today through its organized crime activities – and in the past partially through Libya and possibly the Stasi, in addition to what money was making its way - illicitly and under the table and under false flag - from the United States.
‘A small portion’ of Irish Americans supported the IRA fundraing efforts ’ from your own quote.
It also states that around 40mill Americans classified themselves as Irish Americans.
Given that Northern Irleland has a population of less than 2mill, and that the IRA was drawn from the Catholic population, and these were a a minority of the total population, even a ‘small portion’ of that 40million Irish Americans is a large number compared to the number of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
Its also noteworthy that over 25% of Catholics in Northern Ireland prefer to remain part of the United kingdom.
I would also invite you to reread Boyo Jim’s post.
Its amazing how years after the events, the US suddenly discovers that well actually they did all sorts of things to crack down on Irish terrorists and their fundraising, except for the inconvient facts that quite a few notable US politicians shared platforms alongside Gerry Adams, and at times the escaped Maze prisoners.
Sorry, but there was at the very least a laissez faire attitude by Washington this issue, officially, and in some quarters there was actual backing for the IRA.